Grid integration of Renewable Energy Systems (RES)

An Action Plan by GreenNet-Europe

In March, the EU Member States agreed that by 2020, 20 per cent of the energy consumption in the EU should come from Renewable Energy Systems (RES). But meeting this policy will require large-scale integration of RES electricity generation into the European grids. At the moment, there are still many technical and regulatory issues to be solved.

The GreenNet-Europe project has studied the various dimensions of large-scale grid integration of RES and written an Action Plan on the subject. It has formulated recommendations to policy makers for achieving such a large integration at a minimum cost to society. GreenNet-Europe is supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe programme of the European Commission.

Diagnoses

The GreenNet-Europe diagnoses points out, among other things, that:

• Basic unbundling and market principles are still often violated in the context of RES integration
• Policies for the allocation of grid costs to RES generators are very heterogeneous throughout the EU member states
• For the costs related to grid infrastructure, cost allocation to RES generators goes deep in some countries, while in others there is a shallow or super-shallow approach
• Regarding the cost of grid operation, the intermittency risk related to RES can be either passed on to the end-user or fully covered by the RES generator
• Grid cost allocation policies significantly influence the competitiveness of RES technologies
• Large-scale RES integration on the grid might take place at the expense of the grid operators if the related costs are not recognized by the grid regulation process

Recommendations

GreenNet-Europe formulated the following recommendations for stakeholders:

• Implement correct unbundling of the various players in the electricity system
• Establish markets to mitigate the intermittency risk of RES integration
• Take the grid-operators point-of-view into account
• Based on the changed circumstances, restart the discussion on RES promotion policies